The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company Since 1898, Ritz-Carlton relied on the vision of services that are personalized and would satisfy the most discerning guest.
In the beginning, a New York based real estate company named Millennium Partners decided to do business in the hotel industry. They believed that in order to sell residential properties, you must be the best at service. The best way to convince people that they’re going to have a great time is to have great services and that is how the idea of luxury hotels came about.Millennium Partners joined forced with Ritz- Carlton and Four Seasons because they were clearly the best of hotel operators. Ritz-Carlton is known for their excellent service and that is why guest keep coming back. The general managers aggressively pursued their two main customer groups which are independent travelers and meeting event planners.
For independent travelers, either for business or personal leisure, Ritz-Carlton would greet them in several creative ways such as meeting the travelers at the airport with mimosas or serenading them with piano concertos.To attract business travelers, McBride, the general manager introduced the “Technology Butler” which was a staff of technicians on call 24 hours a day to assist the business guest with computer and other technological difficulties. He also created a concierge desk at the Delta Shuttle at national Airports to attract customers with convenient check-in procedures while outpacing the competition. In 1990 when Patrick Mene joined Ritz-Carlton as the chief quality office, his mission was to integrate the values and concepts of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria at all the company’s hotels around the world.
Using the guidelines, Mene focused on new activities and measures including the cost of poor quality, continuous improvement, quality planning and audits. Some other programs were also set up and designed to meet specific customer needs, such as safety protocols to protect the children of guests and the Service Quality Indicators. One Service Quality indicator involves guest-recognition. McBride was pushed by Mene to hire more than The Ritz-Carlton staffing plan would lead them to hire in Guest Recognition. Mene believe that guest recognition was the single most important thing you could do.When guest first experience a stay at one of the hotels, they get what they wanted and were recognized and it creates a relationship between quest and hotel.
The Seven Day Countdown is a process to get employees trained and it standardization brought greater efficiency and relieved the burden that new managers and leaders had while running a hotel business. After a month of being hired, the employees are oriented to The Ritz-Carlton culture and values and for the rest of the five days, they are introduced to more specific training and trial runs of service delivery.A peep rally is conducted on the first day where they carry signs and chant things for instance, “house-keep-ing”. Each employee is sincerely welcomes as a new member of The Ritz Carlton family. The new employees watch a video which teaches them about the company’s history, philosophy and then another video about the hotel’s milestones, including awards they have won and new hotels that will be opening in the future.
On the second day, each employee is introduced to the department that they will be working in. hey conduct group exercises and the learn more about one another and how each employee functions with one another. Days three though seven is for skills training. For five days, the managers and leadership team met each morning to review the day’s training activities and to resolve the difficulties that have come about. Uniform fittings are scheduled on the third say and personal grooming sessions are conducted and they’re also introduced to the daily lineup of procedures.
New employees receive “life safety” instructions and also treated to wine tastings and they get to enjoy a product show which allowed each employee to learn more about the things that would be provided to meet guests’ comfort. During the last three days of the Seven Day Countdown, employees get technical training from the department they will be working for. On these days, they learn the details that are involved in performing their jobs to the standards by the hotel and everyone is excepted to work under the production processes. The employees get to take their newly learned skills o the test and get dressed in full uniform to serve real customers.
Members of the committee observe every trial fun, from the housekeepers to the restaurant and look for any flaws in their services. For the first month of operating a new hotel, their occupancy is only 50% because it allows them to reduce the number of tables the waiters have to serve and the number of rooms the housekeepers must clean. They do this so that the new employees do their job perfectly and their productivity will increase as they get more and more comfortable with their job.It also allows them to offset minor turnovers that they might experience after opening. The Seven Day Countdown process is said to be the worldwide best practice of the company but I think that it’s to short of a time frame for an employee to learn everything and master all the aspects of becoming a world renounced Ritz-Carlton employee. The first thing I would change is training with mock customers.
During the last few days of the training, they are trained with real customers. I don’t that is safe for the hotel to do because every customer is entitled to a fully trained staff.If the new employees train to real customers and does something wrong, those customers will never return for the same service and you can’t possibly excuse an employee for being new at a luxury hotel because they are known for good service and should be trained thoroughly. For the first month of operation, the hotel is open with only 50% occupancy, but I think that if they train their staff to perfection, they would be able to operate with 100% occupancy and they would not need to take three to four months to steadily increase their occupancy.
